Korea’s economy grew at the slowest pace among member nations of the OECD in the first quarter of this year.

The dismal performance contrasts with President Moon Jae-in’s claim that Korea is seeing “sounder economic growth than major advanced countries” and blamed the weak first-quarter growth on “external factors such as a global economic slowdown.”

The OECD tallied first-quarter growth figures of 22 out of 36 member countries in a report Sunday, and Korea came dead last with its economy shrinking 0.34 percent from the previous quarter.

That was worse than Latvia (-0.3 percent), Mexico (-0.2 percent) and Norway (-0.07 percent), whose economies all shrank. Hungary came on top with 1.5 percent growth, followed by Poland with 1.4 percent and Israel with 1.28 percent. The US economy grew 0.78 percent.

Korea’s contraction is attributable to falling exports and investments and shows it is suffering from a faster deterioration in economic conditions.

Compared to the same period of 2018, meanwhile, Korea’s economy grew 1.8 percent to rank 14th out of the 22 OECD members.

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